How Long Weed Stays in Your System

Each time you smoke marijuana you probably ask yourself: “How long will weed stay in your system?”. The cannabis effects fade rather quickly, but the tracks of the drug can be revealed in your body weeks after consumption, and in some cases, even longer. THC, the active component in marijuana, enters the body’s bloodstream immediately after you make the first hit. When you ingest marijuana, it usually takes from half an hour to an hour for THC to be absorbed in your blood. However, tetrahydrocannabinol, or simply THC, can be tracked in your blood only for a short time, so the question is how does the drug test identify that you smoked weed? The point is that THC is metabolized into certain molecules—metabolites. In your body, there is a minimum of 80 metabolites that are formed because of THC and are stored in body fat.

Drug test limitations

Because marijuana does not stay in the blood for a long time, the doctors do not use blood tests for marijuana detection, except the cases of car accidents. So, blood and saliva drug test can show only the current marijuana intoxication of the body. However, unlike blood tests for alcohol, they do not indicate the level of marijuana used. What about other methods? Urine tests are also not perfect as they can only show recent marijuana consumption. The reason for that is the time required for the metabolites full of THC to leave the urine. However, as almost all employers have zero tolerance for marijuana consumption, most workplaces use exactly urine drug test to identify recent drug consumption.

How long can marijuana be detected in the body?

Some THC metabolites live only for 20 hours. However, there are those with the elimination half-life of 13 days. Many researchers claim that urine drug tests are able to identify marijuana in the system for 13 days. However, it depends on how often the individual consumes weed. Regular marijuana smokers have positive drug test results even a month after the last marijuana smoking experience.

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